As the "Retake Mass Effect" Facebook groups swells to over 40,000 likes, …

Bioware was reportedly tweaking the ending for Mass Effect 3 right up through the end of development, even delaying a voice recording session for Martin Sheen's Illusive Man to accommodate more writing time.

(Warning: the remainder of this article contains spoilers about both the shape and the specifics of the ending to Mass Effect 3)

Writing on the official Bioware forums, Hudson said the series' overall story arc was always meant to "lead to a bittersweet ending" that captured the "underlying theme of sacrifice" and "the agonizing decisions [Commander] Shepard had to make along the way." But he added that the game also includes the option for "an inspiring and uplifting ending" in which Shepard finds a kind of victory in the "hopeless struggle for basic survival."

Still, Hudson said he respects the views of the thousands of players who have expressed dissatisfaction with the way the series ended:

But we also recognize that some of our most passionate fans needed more closure, more answers, and more time to say goodbye to their stories—and these comments are equally valid. Player feedback such as this has always been an essential ingredient in the development of the series.

Giving a concrete sense of closure wasn't really a central goal for the ending to Mass Effect 3, though. In an an interview with Digital Trends early last week, Hudson said he was looking for a memorable ending that would generate "the sort of polarizing reaction that the ends have had with people—debating what the endings mean and what's going to happen next, and what situation are the characters left in."

And the precise details of that ending were apparently up in the air right through to the end of the game's development. In "The Final Days of Mass Effect 3" iPad app, journalist Geoff Keighley discusses how Hudson and writer Mac Walters were debating the final bits of end game dialogue "right up until the end of 2011," even delaying Martin Sheen's Illusive Man voice recording session from August to mid-November to give more writing time. A story planning document shown in the app points towards an ending that would include "lots of speculation for everyone," while still respecting the importance of the player's choices and feelings.

Regardless of the original intentions for the ending, Hudson assured fans on the forums that the team will "keep listening" as they design new downloadable content for the game, "because your insights and constructive feedback will help determine what that content should be. This is not the last you'll hear of Commander Shepard."

BioWare followed up with a post on the Mass Effect Facebook page today, saying that the developer is "actively and seriously taking all player feedback into consideration" and has "not made a decision regarding requests to change the ending."

The protests continue

Retake ME3

The new statements seem to have given Bioware a little breathing room with online protesters. The "Retake Mass Effect 3" Facebook group, which now boasts over 40,000 likes and nearly 4,500 Twitter followers, recently posted that it was "giv[ing] Bioware a little more time to respond to us directly. ME3 has been out for less than two weeks, we need to give them time to realize we aren't going away."

That doesn't mean they're sitting on their hands in the meantime, though. The group finished a letter-writing campaign over the weekend, has added pages in Spanish and Russian to help get the word out internationally, and is "working on ideas to support the movement at [April's] PAX East [convention]," according to Facebook postings. The group is even putting its money where its mouth is, raising over $67,000 in donations for Penny Arcade's Child's Play charity to "bring positive attention" to their efforts. "We would like to dispel the perception that we are angry or entitled," the fundraising appeal explains. "We simply wish to express our hope that there could be a different direction for a series we have all grown to love."

But that hasn't been enough for some angry fans. One Bioware forum member recently wrote about filing complaints against publisher Electronic Arts with the FTC and the Better Business Bureau, claiming that prerelease developer interview statements regarding the ending constitute a form of "false advertising." It's a pretty shaky argument, given the vague and subjective nature of most if not all of those quotes, but it's a bold move that shows just how committed some gamers are to complaining about the game's ending.

The backlash against the ending is even getting big enough to generate a backlash of its own: A newly formed "Keep Mass Effect!" Facebook group popped up over the weekend "to show Bioware that these petitioners and lawsuit harbingers are, in fact, a minority to all those who love the Mass Effect series and how it ended." The group is off to a bit of a slow start, though, with only 27 members as of this writing.

(1) Borrowed the ending from a major plot point in, "The Matrix".(2) The ending as-is doesn't make sense in the first place. It's not necessarily a "good" nor "bad" ending, it's predominantly a nonsensical one. Synthetic-God-Child (SGC) says that it needs to kill organics to prevent synthetics from taking over the galaxy and killing all organic life, with apparent complete disregard for the fact that SGC could instead just "wipe out the synthetics" instead of "killing organics to prevent organics from making synthetics who then take over the galaxy and kill all organic life".

It's terrible, terrible writing, and absolutely nonsensical...

Spoiler: show

...particularly for a "life form" that has supposedly existed for millions of years and is the pinnacle of synthetic evolution.

Problem with the ending has nothing to do with bittersweat or whatever BS. I'm cool with "everybody dies" situation. Sounds good. Problem is: nothing in the game has an effect on the ending. Other than which one is picked. Your decisions don't matter other than "galactic readiness" rating

(1) Borrowed the ending from a major plot point in, "The Matrix".(2) The ending as-is doesn't make sense in the first place. It's not necessarily a "good" nor "bad" ending, it's predominantly a nonsensical one. Synthetic-God-Child (SGC) says that it needs to kill organics to prevent synthetics from taking over the galaxy and killing all organic life, with apparent complete disregard for the fact that SGC could instead just "wipe out the synthetics" instead of "killing organics to prevent organics from making synthetics who then take over the galaxy and kill all organic life".

It's terrible, terrible writing, and absolutely nonsensical...

Spoiler: show

...particularly for a "life form" that has supposedly existed for millions of years and is the pinnacle of synthetic evolution.

Also no decisions you make in the game matter, other than "galactic readiness"

The nonsensical part is what gets to me. Hate that shit.

Spoiler: show

I was honestly waiting for the fleet to be defeated when I wasn't ready. I thought the superweapon would make us "equal" to reapers so I'd have to start wiping em out all over the galaxy and the decisions I made would pay off. But nope. Nothing.

It truly is a bizarre thing. Everything was great up until the ending which was several bad sci-fi cliches you usually see in a first year creative writing class. For a good read, a professional screenwriter posted to the Bioware forums with an excellent analysis of what precisely was wrong with the ending from a purely thematic and logical point of view. Yeah, now and then people should "break the rules", but most times those rules are there for a reason, such as not cratering your well crafted trilogy into an illogical mess.

As someone who has never, ever played Mass Effect, ever, I would think that, after 3 games and certain amounts of DLC, it's a mistake for any game developer to finish a series and to leave "loose ends" lying around. The player has put at least a hundred hours into the game, characters, and setting, and there's more than enough time to devote to ensuring that most of the immediate plot threads that affect the main characters are closed.

It does seem in poor form to leave the ending kind of mostly explained. Granted, since I've never played ME I wonder if it's a case of:

- "Oh no, too many loose ends" or rather:

- "Oh no, we can't make the ending as happy as we'd like no matter how many decisions we make".

If it's the second, then I'd say "tough luck". Most of BioWare games are branching to the same outcomes anyway. Maybe one character lives when another one dies; another dies when one character lives in another choice. But... in the end the decision is up to BioWare, not the players when it comes to the actual end.

It's neither. It's that the ending simply doesn't fit the series, is sloppily handled, and particularly lazy. Most fans were expecting epic and bittersweet. That's not the problem.

I can't say I was satisfied by the ending but, to me, it didn't invalidate the 100-hours or so that my original ME1 Shepard went through and all the satisfying game play and story that was built as I played. I can't say I'd be upset at BioWare if they were to release another ending that provides more conclusion and wrap up than the last 60 seconds of cutscene and the after-the-credits bit.

As to the guy who filed a complaint to the FTC: That's just ridiculous! Reading through his complaint, it's like throwing a hissy fit because Peter Jackson scrubbed the Scouring of the Shire from the end of Return of the King.

I'm surprised and a little bit appalled that Bioware is responding to these criticisms at all. I hate the charivari of corporate PR, but more importantly, this is setting an awful precedent. Bioware is one of the industry's best developers for single-player stories, and I really don't think a bunch of strident fans should hold more sway over the story than the developers. What about the people who are satisfied with ME3's ending? Are our endings no longer 'the truth'?

I feel like I'm watching one of those scenes at the mall. You know the ones I'm talking about. A snot-nosed brat rolling around in the middle of the food court screaming, while his parents desperately try to appease him with promises of ice cream instead of telling him to shut the hell up or waiting for him to get tired. Of course, all that really happens is the kid learns that he can get what he wants, no matter how ridiculous, by screaming loud enough.

I haven't played it yet, but I have skirted spoilers enough to get an idea of what cards they pulled. While that kind of ending might be acceptable for a novel, I don't see how they thought they could get away with it in a game. Despite setting the bar for games, Mass Effect is about on the level of a pulp sci-fi adventure novel, something like Zahn would write. Entertaining for sure, but a tragic ending is not appropriate. Overly bittersweet endings have a pretty small audience even in fiction, and expecting gamers to appreciate it, when so many of them identify personally with their character (not really a problem in books), is silly and ignorant.

They also wrote themselves into a corner that required a Deus Ex Machina, and did it in just about the laziest way possible, by using a stale sci-fi trope. Basically, lack of proper planning made them pull a Lost. Shame on you Bioware.

I love how, by protesting, these "fans" have completely missed the point of the ending...

YOUR DECISIONS AND ACTIONS ARE IRRELEVANT IN DETERMINING OUTCOMES

If that WAS the point (and given how sloppy the very last couple of minutes are, who knows?), then they had to know it would go over like a beer fart in church. Pulling a PoP '08 lite isn't a way to satisfy people. Especially at the end of a trilogy, and especially when the entire series, to that point, was all about player choices reverberating later down the line.

It may be ironic or artistic, but it's not satisfying in any way. It's jarring and frustrating, and what little ambiguity is there isn't all that fun to think through.

I can't say I was satisfied by the ending but, to me, it didn't invalidate the 100-hours or so that my original ME1 Shepard went through and all the satisfying game play and story that was built as I played. I can't say I'd be upset at BioWare if they were to release another ending that provides more conclusion and wrap up than the last 60 seconds of cutscene and the after-the-credits bit.

As to the guy who filed a complaint to the FTC: That's just ridiculous! Reading through his complaint, it's like throwing a hissy fit because Peter Jackson scrubbed the Scouring of the Shire from the end of Return of the King.

I have to agree with the FTC filing. Nothing to do with the game. If someone advertises X and gives you Y, they should be held accountable. So far content has been out of the crosshairs, but it should be. My time is valuable. Giving insane advertising for a show of effectively a guy sitting for 30 minutes with a thumb up his ass is actually wasting MY time. Granted I'd never watch anything from those makers again, nor will I trust the network, it should still be controlled how much you can deceive someone.

I kinda felt the same way about DX:HR ending. You can get all four endings by just saving right at the end a clicking a different button. No need to play the game differently to see the other endings (apart from a minor thing you need to do in the last stage of the game to open up two of the endings).

There are a couple of different lines of dialog at the end depending on how you played, but who would replay the whole game just to hear two lines of different dialog at the end?

Hudson said he was looking for a memorable ending that would generate "the sort of polarizing reaction that the ends have had with people—debating what the endings mean and what's going to happen next, and what situation are the characters left in."

This is what I find most tragic about what happened to ME3. Up until the ending, we had a wonderfully told story culminating to its final conclusion, and then we get a really bad M. Night Shamylan stunt (even by his standards) pulled on us at the very end.

Well he got his polarizing response at least, I'll give him credit for that. Still a really bad idea.

It's telling that Casey Hudson admitted that the ending was done at the very end of development, because it definitely feels rushed/tacked on. The sudden shift in tone, the Deus ex Machina info dump, the illogical choices that are presented without any depth or context....

The other 95% of the game was phenomenal, but the end really dropped the ball.

I'm surprised and a little bit appalled that Bioware is responding to these criticisms at all. I hate the charivari of corporate PR, but more importantly, this is setting an awful precedent.

The precedent has already been set. For a historical literary example (one of many) the protagonist of the Sherlock Holmes series was resurrected, and the series revived after fan outcry to the original ending. In the gaming industry, only a few years ago Bethesda decided to revise the ending to Fallout 3 after the original was panned by fans.

I love how, by protesting, these "fans" have completely missed the point of the ending...

YOUR DECISIONS AND ACTIONS ARE IRRELEVANT IN DETERMINING OUTCOMES

If that WAS the point (and given how sloppy the very last couple of minutes are, who knows?), then they had to know it would go over like a beer fart in church. Pulling a PoP '08 lite isn't a way to satisfy people. Especially at the end of a trilogy, and especially when the entire series, to that point, was all about player choices reverberating later down the line.

It may be ironic or artistic, but it's not satisfying in any way. It's jarring and frustrating, and what little ambiguity is there isn't all that fun to think through.

Which makes it all the more mind boggling that they could make such an amazing storyline in almost every aspect up to that point, and then end it...like that.

I mean, they put so much attention to detail that things like this show up in the game, but then...that ending.

I honestly don't know why anyone would want to work in game development any more. All this work just so people can launch angry campaigns, file federal complaints and bomb you on forums across the web. Creators get to decide what happens at the end of their story, period. Do people do this with TV shows, too? (I'm not plugged in enough to be aware if so, I guess.)

Or have gamers once again proven they are the most entitled sub-group of consumers that history has ever known...?

Looks like my policy of waiting for the cheapass $20 GotY (or whatever) edition is a solid plan.

+1, True Story and sad at the same time.

It's not as if I have the time to game leisurely anymore anyway, so I just avoid massive spoilers and cherry pick titles (usually when they hit GOTY/Platinum/Best Of etc.).

But hey, at least we got to influence the ending of Dragon Age: Origins.And, unfortunately, it looks like that's as close as we'll get to old-school Baldur's Gate for the foreseeable future.

Predicting ending for Dragon Age 3 to be in the same vein as for Mass Effect 3 in 3.. 2.. 1..

Spoiler: show

An elder dark god who escaped (baby dg or yet unknown plothole dg) makes an alliance with architect or some other darkspawn to trick the Grey Wardens and Chantry into killing eachother, triggering a global conflict whose end purpose is to bring back the maker, as a result of the carnage. (cue in FFXIII-esque ending + music)..........Only for the plan to fail and we get an 'everybody dies' emo ending (it's 2012 after all, gotta cash in on DAT MARKETING).

I honestly don't know why anyone would want to work in game development any more. All this work just so people can launch angry campaigns, file federal complaints and bomb you on forums across the web. Creators get to decide what happens at the end of their story, period. Do people do this with TV shows, too? (I'm not plugged in enough to be aware if so, I guess.)

Or have gamers once again proven they are the most entitled sub-group of consumers that history has ever known...?

It's corporate profit mentality, it doesn't have to make sense. It's the same reason why companies like Bioware and Blizzard will enslave themselves to corpulent behemoths like EA and Activision.

I'm surprised and a little bit appalled that Bioware is responding to these criticisms at all. I hate the charivari of corporate PR, but more importantly, this is setting an awful precedent.

The precedent has already been set. For a historical literary example (one of many) the protagonist of the Sherlock Holmes series was resurrected, and the series revived after fan outcry to the original ending. In the gaming industry, only a few years ago Bethesda decided to revise the ending to Fallout 3 after the original was panned by fans.

You actually don't have to go back all the way to Sherlock Holmes for an example. Mass Effect Deception (ME Book 4) is currently (allegedly) in re-write due to the feedback of fans (also due to all the errors, which, granted, ME3 doesn't have as many of, but it's a similar situation).

I'm surprised and a little bit appalled that Bioware is responding to these criticisms at all.

Wow. They are responding to the complaints of paying customers. How horrid of them.

Learfz wrote:

Bioware is one of the industry's best developers for single-player stories,

That's what is so disappointing. It's like the dominating kick ass team having a fumble in the last seconds that loses the big game.

Learfz wrote:

What about the people who are satisfied with ME3's ending? Are our endings no longer 'the truth'?

Each to his own, usually, but in this case I really don't get it. This was a cliche-ridden mess that presents *precisely the opposite* of what Hudson said it would be, gives us *no* conclusion for anyone other than Shepard, and then a scene that is absolutely disconnected from what we just saw. It's hard to understand how anyone thought it was a satisfying ending.

Learfz wrote:

I feel like I'm watching one of those scenes at the mall. You know the ones I'm talking about. A snot-nosed brat....

And so on and so forth. Yes, yes, anyone who criticizes the precious Ending is a child and immature. How fitting you attack the critics with more cliches. Whatever, sport. Maybe try getting over yourself, actually reading the precise criticisms, and understanding.

Which makes it all the more mind boggling that they could make such an amazing storyline in almost every aspect up to that point, and then end it...like that.

I mean, they put so much attention to detail that things like this show up in the game, but then...that ending.

How do they let this happen? That's the bigger mystery.

THIS. I can deal with the magical god child and reaper cyclical harvesting and the diminished ending-influence of player plot choices throughout the series, and I'm okay with Shepard dying for a cause, and I can even accept an unclear resolution for the squadmates and organic life on the galactic whole. I may not like it, but I can accept that style of ending.

What I refuse to accept is that the writing team who, for 2.9 games, expertly developed certain thematic elements like sacrifice and self-determination and hope and victory over cyclical violence and shared fates between organics and synthetics, crafting one of the most touching and nuanced stories I've ever played...that this writing team then decided to take a steaming shit in their own literary bed and totally invert and/or scrap every narrative theme they'd crafted. Every single important theme in this game was ruined in its last ten minutes. Every single one.

I honestly don't know why anyone would want to work in game development any more. All this work just so people can launch angry campaigns, file federal complaints and bomb you on forums across the web. Creators get to decide what happens at the end of their story, period. Do people do this with TV shows, too? (I'm not plugged in enough to be aware if so, I guess.)

Or have gamers once again proven they are the most entitled sub-group of consumers that history has ever known...?

The difference is that with games, especially in games where choices lead to discrete consequences, the player has an active role in shaping the story. The developer creates the framework and the various plot points, but it's the player that weaves them together. As such, our stories each play out differently.

One of the problems with ME3's ending is that it didn't take into account any of the variations in play up until that point. Instead, the player is railroaded into making a final choice which can fly in the face of what was chosen earlier, with no recognition of the current status quo. Spoilers below:

We're told at the very end that the big, giant robots that attack every 50,000 years are actually a galactic fail-safe. According to some previous race, synthetic life (robots) will inevitably destroy organic life. The solution was to BUILD GIANT ROBOTS, harvest the organics when they get technologically advanced enough to create synthetic life, and USE THE ORGANICS AS THE LIFEBLOOD/CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE ROBOTS.

Earlier on in the game, I brokered peace between the current synthetic life forms and their creators. What's more, both ME2 and ME3 go out of their way to explain how the synthetics just wanted peace.

None of that is even mentioned at the end. To me, that's a problem.

Even beyond that, the end choices do not matter. It's never explained why Shepard must decide, why the Reapers can't simply be turned off, why the Reapers never engaged in activities to dissuade organics from creating synthetics, etc.

It's a crap ending, all around. Not that it justifies complaining to the Better Business Bureau, but crap nonetheless.

And so on and so forth. Yes, yes, anyone who criticizes the precious Ending is a child and immature. How fitting you attack the critics with more cliches. Whatever, sport. Maybe try getting over yourself, actually reading the precise criticisms, and understanding.

And this is the kind of arrogant crap that makes everyone else back away slowly from fans. Those of us who liked the ending understand the criticisms, we simply disagree. The fact you feel it necessary to denigrate and insult us is shameful.

I see no reason to change the ending, because no matter what everyone is going to remember the original ending. You can paste on a rainbow farts and sparkly donuts ending to placate some people, but why? The damage has already been done. Instead, I'd rather they started a new chapter in the ME series (moving on from Shepard) showing the aftermath of his choice.

Earlier on in the game, I brokered peace between the current synthetic life forms and their creators. What's more, both ME2 and ME3 go out of their way to explain how the synthetics just wanted peace.

None of that is even mentioned at the end. To me, that's a problem.

It's not mentioned because, from the precursor's perspective, the peace won't last. They see it as inevitable that machines will destroy organics.

Quote:

Even beyond that, the end choices do not matter. It's never explained why Shepard must decide, why the Reapers can't simply be turned off, why the Reapers never engaged in activities to dissuade organics from creating synthetics, etc.

Er, it is mentioned. The VI-kid sums up what the precursors believed: synthetics will wipe out organics and, in their mind, the only way to prevent that is to cull organics right before they can develop the kinds of machines which can do that. The Reapers don't "dissuade" the creation of synthetics because they're the equivalent of a program on your computer. They fulfill a function, nothing more.

Quote:

It's a crap ending, all around. Not that it justifies complaining to the Better Business Bureau, but crap nonetheless.

It's not a happy ending, that's for sure, but I disagree that it's crap. I do agree that going to the BBB is laughable, though.

And this is the kind of arrogant crap that makes everyone else back away slowly from fans. Those of us who liked the ending understand the criticisms, we simply disagree. The fact you feel it necessary to denigrate and insult us is shameful.

OK. Learfz spends a paragraph calling the critics little whining children in a mall, I call him out him for that, and *I'm* being denigrating. Just about every response to the criticisms attacks the critics and not the arguments. The hypocrisy here is breathtaking.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.